§ Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for a special report on the psychiatric condition of David Anslow and Walter Probyn who have been held for extended periods in the special units at Wakefield Prison and Wormwood Scrubs.
§ Dr. SummerskillMy right hon. Friend has recently received a report from the248W principal medical officer of Wakefield Prison on David Anslow, who is in the control unit there. The report says that Mr. Anslow was considered to be in satisfactory physical and mental health on admission to the unit on 22nd May, that he has made no medical complaints since then and that, contrary to various Press reports, there is no evidence of any change in his physical or mental health.
Walter Probyn left Wormwood Scrubs prison in January 1973 and was released from imprisonment in March 1974. Mr. Probyn had therefore left the prison before the building work necessary to create the proposed control unit at Wormwood Scrubs had begun; and he had finished his sentence five months before the Wakefield control unit was opened. The Wormwood Scrubs unit was never, of course, brought into operation.
§ Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for a report on the discussions between Dr. Harold Merskey, Professor Alex Jenner, the Director of Prison Medical Services and the Medical Officer of Wakefield Prison concerning the psychiatric effects on prisoners held in the special control unit; and if he will make a statement on the future of this unit.
§ Dr. SummerskillMy right hon. Friend has received reports on the separate discussions about the control unit at Wakefield Prison which Dr. Harold Merskey and Professor Alex Jenner have had with the Director of Prison Medical Services. As to the future of the unit, my right hon. Friend intends to make a statement shortly at the conclusion of the review he referred to in answer to my hon. Friend's Question on 14th July.—[Vol. 895, c.315.]